Two school friends from Hanover and a preserves factory in Aargau.

Hero began in Lenzburg, in the Swiss canton of Aargau, in 1886. Two Germans who had known each other since their schooldays in Hanover, Gustav Henckell and Gustav Zeiler, set up a fruit and vegetable preserves factory there under the name Henckell, Zeiler & Cie, according to the Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz and German Wikipedia. German Wikipedia says the firm’s land was entered in the land register on 15 January 1886, that the first factory building was occupied that June and that the first tins of peas were filled on 17 June 1886.

A third partner, the Lenzburg merchant Carl Roth (also written Karl), joined in 1888, according to a company timeline published for Hero’s 120th anniversary in 2006 and German Wikipedia; the Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz places his entry, as a limited partner, in the founding year. After Zeiler’s death the business became Henckell & Roth in 1889, the Lexikon says, and in 1898 it was turned into a joint-stock company, the Conservenfabrik Lenzburg. English Wikipedia dates Zeiler’s death to 1890; the Swiss sources give 1889.

The name Hero arrived in 1910. It is built from the first letters of the two surnames, HEnckell and ROth, the company’s 2006 timeline says, and by 1912 the firm was selling 31 varieties of jam under the new brand. German Wikipedia says the Hero mark was built up from 1910 with sustained and heavy advertising for “Lenzburg” preserves and jams — spending of around three per cent of sales in the 1940s — and that its trademark drew the letter “r” in the form of an opened tin. The Lexikon notes that preserves were at first rarely bought by households, which is why advertising mattered so much to the business.

Jams, tins and subsidiaries across Europe.

Hero grew beyond Switzerland early. The 2006 timeline records a Dutch subsidiary in 1914, today Hero Nederland, and a Spanish one in 1922, today Hero España; German Wikipedia dates the Spanish business, at Alcantarilla near Murcia, to 1920. German Wikipedia also lists a German factory, the Helvetia Konservenfabrik in Groß-Gerau, and a French subsidiary in the early twentieth century, and the company timeline adds an Italian subsidiary in 1967. At home Hero bought the factory at Frauenfeld in 1906 — the Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz calls it Switzerland’s oldest preserves factory — and one at Saxon in 1927. Its shares were listed on the Zurich and Basel exchanges from 1914.

Jam sat beside a long list of other preserves. The company timeline names Parmadoro tomato products in 1933, Hero Ravioli in 1948, ready-made Rösti in a tin in 1968 and a light jam range in 1982; the Lexikon adds sausages and meat products from 1917 and pasta from 1987. Its best-known jam line, Hero Delicia, was created in 1943, during sugar rationing, and by 2006 the company called it the strongest jam in its range.

In 2011 Hero moved into a new headquarters in Lenzburg, a round building with a new plant beside it built only to make jam, at a cost of about CHF 20 million, German Wikipedia says. The Museum Burghalde in Lenzburg holds the official Hero archive and shows the company’s history as part of its permanent display on the town’s industry, German Wikipedia adds; a company history, Hero – seit 1886 in aller Munde, was published in 2011 by the museum’s foundation and the Swiss Economic Archives.

Jam, marmalade and fruit spreads.

The seven brands in this group all make jam and fruit spreads, and they come from Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the United States and France: Hero, Darbo, Zentis, Schwartau, Smucker’s, Andros and St. Dalfour. Jam brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family firms that still carry a founder’s surname to names that now belong to much larger food groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a village shop to a supermarket shelf in another continent.

A jam brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single product than by a jar, a lid, a label and the breakfast it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its factory or grown far beyond the town where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its jam is actually cooked and filled.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its jam is made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From a listed Swiss company to a private group.

Ownership changed in the 1990s. In 1995 the German businessman Arend Oetker took a majority holding in Hero, through his jam company Schwartau, English and German Wikipedia say. By early 2003 his holding owned 74 per cent, German Wikipedia reports, and that year Hero went private and was delisted from the Swiss exchange, as the company’s 2006 timeline also records; English Wikipedia says full ownership passed to the Oetker family in 2003. Hero then bought the Schwartauer Werke, German Wikipedia says, and the German jam maker Schwartau is listed today as a Hero brand. In 2004 Hero bought the baby-food brands Galactina, Adapta and Céralino from Wander, and in 2024 it bought Deliciously Ella, according to the 2006 timeline and English Wikipedia respectively.

Hero jam is no longer made in Lenzburg. In September 2024 Hero said it would end jam production there by the end of the year; the Swiss broadcaster SRF reported that about 50 jobs would go and that most products were already being made abroad. The cough-sweet maker Ricola bought the plant and planned to start production there in the first quarter of 2026. Hero’s headquarters stayed in the town — “the birthplace of our company,” chief executive Rob Versloot told SRF. Today the group calls itself “a global food company focused on branded nutritional food products,” with about 4,000 employees and brands including Hero, Corny, Beech-Nut, Schwartau and Organix, and it reported 2025 net sales of CHF 1,187 million. In June 2026 an open-air play about the company, Hero – Geschichten mit Herz, premiered at the Freilichttheater Staufberg near Lenzburg, German Wikipedia says.

For a design guide, Hero shows how a short name made from two founders’ surnames can carry a preserves business across more than a century and many countries. Compare Bonne Maman, the French jam brand of the Andros group, and Schwartau, the German jam maker that Hero owns. For this guide we use a deep red, apricot and cream with a bold sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Hero’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.